


Rival Professors

by house_of_lantis



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 22:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15543309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/house_of_lantis/pseuds/house_of_lantis
Summary: Original Prompt: Rival professors – we’re both professors in the same department and it enhances your reputation with the students as a mysterious enigma and my reputation as a stone-cold terror if we pretend to hate each other, plus when we back each other up in departmental meetings, everyone’s so surprised they give in right away.Note: Written in the style of “The Virgin Suicides” with the students telling the story/gossip behind Professors Rogers and Barnes; Names of the students are taken from the Young Avengers stories.





	Rival Professors

**Author's Note:**

> This was part of my Marvel one-shot collection (now deleted).

Most of us remembered when Professor James Buchanan Barnes joined the university’s history department. Kat Farrell giggled and called him, “fresh meat” and reported how she overheard in the ladies room that there was a bet on which of the faculty could get Professor Barnes into bed before the end of his first semester. He had a nickname –  _Bucky_  – that Tommy Shepherd claimed he heard Professor Steve Rogers pronounce with out-of-character derision in his low Brooklyn drawl, but we now know that it was all just a ruse, that it wasn’t derisive at all, and it was probably said with something akin to love or lust.

But that wasn’t the last of Professor Barnes’s nicknames as he had earned quite a number of them from his first semester teaching one of the most intense courses on the fall of the Soviet Union. Nate Richards, who was in Professor Barnes’s first session, claimed that Professor Barnes would lapse into dark, guttural Russian in the middle of his lectures, unknowingly switching languages, with a crazed glint in his icy blue eyes. Nate also reported that while blaring the Russian national anthem, Professor Barnes went into some kind of frozen daze and Professor Rogers, who was teaching next door, came into the room to shout at Professor Barnes to turn the music down, noticed that Professor Barnes was frozen, and yelled what sounded like “Winter Soldier, stand down” that brought Professor Barnes out of his bizarre fugue state.

Professor Steven Grant Rogers wasn’t just eye candy in the history department. He taught a complex World War II history course that pulled us into his lectures as if we were with him in the field of battle. No one could get a really good read on Professor Rogers; he was a brilliant teacher, there was a waitlist for his class every semester, and his lectures were always interesting because he didn’t regurgitate the same stuff we’d learned in high school history classes. But he was built like a Greek God, he was always polite to everyone, and he was also completely oblivious to the fact that everyone flirted with him. “I swear to God,  _everyone_  flirts with him, it’s like a compulsion or something,” America Chavez announced, shaking her head. “Students, admins, profs, all the Deans, janitorial, IT, the entire Student Union, grounds, visiting dignitaries, young, old, gay, straight, trans, bi, whatever – everyone flirts with Professor Rogers and he totally doesn’t get it.” For someone so personable, he was completely unavailable. “Honestly, you guys, can you just consider the fact that he might be Ace?” Jessica Jones said, her voice low with annoyance. “How can anyone who looks like him be asexual? He can bang anyone he wants! I’d bang him. Hell, Nate would pay to bang him!” Eli Bradley demanded to know. “You’re a fucking asshole,” Jessica told him, rolling her eyes.

Despite some of the best pieces of gossip, we were wary of Nate because it was obvious he had a huge crush on Professor Rogers and made it a point to always side with Professor Rogers over Professor Barnes. “It’s nothing as lame as a simple crush. I want Rogers to be my mentor,” Nate once told us, casually slipping it in. “I heard he used to date Dr. Victor von Doom and, I don’t know, I feel like I really need to meet Dr. Doom and going through Rogers is the fastest way to make that happen.” It would be only much later, after we graduated from college, that we’d discover too late Nate’s true colors and that he would kill one of our best friends.

The nickname Winter Soldier suited Professor Barnes perfectly. No one really knew that much about him. He didn’t have a home address, just a P.O. Box in town, and none of the student workers who had access to faculty records could get anything useful. Cassie Lang found a copy of Professor Barnes’s curriculum vitae and noted that he spent several years in the Army where he was honorably discharged as a Sergeant. Further intense Google research showed that Professor Barnes served with distinction, primarily in the Balkans, and was noted to have received a Prisoner of War medal on top of his other medals. “That’s probably when he must’ve lost his left arm,” Teddy Altman said, shivering at the idea, “when he was a POW. They must’ve cut it off him.” We knew that there was more to it than that, but no one was willing to address Professor Barnes’s unique and awesomely intimidating prosthetic to him. “I heard that he’s best friends with Tony Stark and Stark personally built him that silver arm. It’s supposed to be on the cutting edge of biomecha prosthetics, like a decade ahead of current research, and Stark is going to make major bank when he rolls it out commercially,” Billy Kaplan told us, shaking a handful of printouts in his hand. “Professor Barnes is his test case; I read that he’s able to feel everything like a real arm, but that it’s 50 times stronger than a human arm.”

Professor Barnes was an intense man, but he never lost his temper and he never resorted to making threats. He was a straightforward kind of guy; we always knew where we stood with him. It was obvious that he took his teaching duties seriously, but he never gave out pointless quizzes or lame assignments. If we attended his lectures, did our readings, submitted our semester research paper, and passed the final exam, Professor Barnes said that we’d done our duty as his students. Despite the lax environment, no one absolutely fucked with Professor Barnes. Kate Bishop told us that she overheard Professor Barnes talking with Dean Coulson about an incident that happened in Russia. “He was talking about brainwashing and being put on ice and something called a Dragunova SVD,” she told us, her voice breathless with excitement. A Google search showed us that a Dragunova was a Russian sniper rifle.

But the most amazing thing – a frightening thing – was watching Professor Rogers and Professor Barnes interacting, like watching a human battle unfold. They were both so smart, so sarcastic, and so quick with their insults and digs, it was hard to keep up with them. When Kate Bishop was a student worker in the history department, she would sit in on faculty meetings to take notes, and she reported that “Professor Rogers and Professor Barnes seriously hate each other. They never agree on any single thing. Not even on the kind of sandwiches to order for catering!” It was obvious that they hated each other, but no one knew why. “I mean, they’re both from Brooklyn boys so it kind of makes sense that they’re both a pair of jerks,” Kate told us, laughing.

All of which was a clever ruse, a long con against everyone at the university. It took three years for us to unravel their odd relationship, and then things started to make a lot of sense. We sent Teddy and Eli to follow Professor Rogers, and Jessica and Cassie to follow Professor Barnes. We knew that Professor Rogers had a small cottage house off-campus, but no one knew where Professor Barnes lived. Jessica and Cassie followed him to the town’s post office where he picked up his mail, then walked ten blocks back towards campus, walking behind a cozy blue house with a red door and white shutters. Teddy, Eli, Jessica and Cassie looked at each other in surprise and realized that Professor Rogers and Professor Barnes were  _living_   together. “And we’re not talking just as housemates either. We looked into the kitchen window and saw them kissing,” Cassie said, giddily. “There was a lot of tongue action,” Eli told us, eyes widening meaningfully. Cassie squealed, clapping her hands. “Professor Rogers slipped his hands into Professor Barnes’s back pockets.”

Definitive proof came when Teddy took a picture with his phone and the four of them ran off the property when Professor Barnes somehow heard the quiet “click” and turned to glare at them and Eli screamed, “oh shit they saw us run!” Teddy showed us the picture of Professor Rogers and Professor Barnes standing very closely in their cozy little kitchen, arms around each other, talking softly and kissing. “They’re so hot together,” America murmured, looking at the image. “What’re we going to do with this? Should we post it online or something? No one would ever believe us,” Tommy said, frowning slightly. “Why don’t we just give them their privacy? If they’ve gone to all these lengths to keep their relationship private, then we should give them their privacy,” Jessica said, looking at us.

We agreed to look at the photographic evidence of their private life together one last time and Teddy deleted the image from his phone. No one said anything more about Professor Rogers and Professor Barnes; and if we smiled to ourselves whenever we heard Professor Rogers call Professor Barnes “Bucky,” well, then that was our secret to keep. 


End file.
